


Not Feeling Himself

by ThreadbareT



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23197429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreadbareT/pseuds/ThreadbareT
Summary: Something is wrong with the TARDIS, and the Doctor is not acting himself.
Kudos: 10





	Not Feeling Himself

“Do you think…” Ian trailed off, unsure how to finish the whispered sentence.  
Barbara looked up from her book and fixed Ian with one of her long, slow, piercing looks. One of the ones she had always been good at, that could shut up any student from a hundred paces, make the headmaster rethink the poor choice of words he was about to make, or convince a Dalek she was about to say something worth listening to.  
“He isn’t being himself,” Ian whispered, edging over to the door, and peeping carefully out.  
Barbara’s sigh was soft and breathy. “He misses Susan.”  
“I know…” Ian said, poking his head out into the TARDIS corridors, where the Doctor had been stalking about, restlessly pacing back and forth, pottering inside the machinery, and toiling in his workshop, butterflying between projects for what had felt like days.  
The Doctor was striding past, his cane tucked under his arm like a swagger stick. If he noticed Ian, he didn’t spare the teacher a glance. His back was straight, his shoulders squared, his brow pinched in a dark, broody, frown that seemed to draw all the shadows of the TARDIS about his eyes. He was muttering darkly under his breath.  
Ian retreated and gave Barbara a pleading look. “But he’s turned Scottish.”  
Barbara choked on a snorting laugh. “He’s what?”  
Ian stared right into her eyes. “Haven’t you heard his voice?”  
Barbara frowned, thoughtfully. “You… aren’t joking are you?”  
Ian nodded to the door.  
Barbara smiled, and put the jacket she was repairing aside, rising to her feet and marching out of the door, and down the corridor to the console room. Ian followed her, hurrying to keep up. His point was proven before they reached the console room.  
The engines were groaning and straining, the time rotor grinding with every laboured rise, or treacle slow fall.  
“Ha!” The Doctor declared, as he darted, energetically about the console, throwing levers and jabbing at switches. “You won’t catch me that easily!” His voice was distinctly Scottish, elegantly refined, and somewhat theatrical, but with a sharp note of anger. “Well, you did catch me, but you won’t drag me in there… no no no!”  
“Doctor?” Ian asked. “Is… there a problem? Can we help?”  
He looked up at the pair of teachers, and smiled. “Ian! Barbara! Ah! Have either of you seen a pair of sunglasses around? Sexy black, sleek design, stuffed to the gills with crafty psionic, sonic technology? And Google?” He frowned, and threw another lever. “Oh, you don’t like that do you?”  
“Doctor!” Barbara snapped.  
He stood still, and looked at them.  
“What,” Barbara asked, gently, “is going on?”  
The Doctor ticked his head, and slapped his ear. His accent dropped several hundred miles South in an instant. He beamed with youthful enthusiasm, and opened a roundel on the TARDIS wall, from which he produced a Fez, and set it on his head at an angle that was… well… there was no other word for it that Ian could find, other than ‘jaunty’.  
“Right!” The Doctor said, pointing at the ship’s scanner. “Short version is… that!”  
The ‘That’ in question was an object hanging in the swirling maelstrom of the vortex. It was a spaceship, Ian realised, or something pretty close to a spaceship, long and needle nosed, like a rocket, but with an intricate array of towers, masts and gun turrets that suggested a venerable old warship.  
“The long version…” The Doctor said, stepping close to Barbara and putting his hands on her shoulder. “Well, there’s a whopping great big time-vessel in the vortex, trying to either break free, or blow up, but unable to do either because the time engines have gone into a Paradox Cascade, and its trying to do both, and it’s got a bit… stuck, in a single split second. A fraction of time, stretched out forever, and as it’s struggling, it’s like…. A whirlpool, trying to suck us in. If we’re lucky, we will either break free, or blow up.”  
“Blowing up is a lucky thing?” Ian asked.  
“Well…” The Doctor’s accent dropped down into the Estuary, as he ran a hand through his hair, knocking the hat off. His grin turned distinctly cheeky. “It’s better than spending all of eternity doing both. You might not even notice it, just…” He clicked his fingers. “But me?” His tone darkened. “Well, I’d experience every aching moment of ‘all eternity’. Sorry. It’s a bit timey-wimey…” He rubbed his chin in thought, and flicked the switches on the console. “I’m holding water, but as it is…”  
“Doctor,” Ian said, evenly, “what is happening with your voice?”  
“Ah.” The Doctor cocked his head. “You can see that?”  
Ian and Barbara nodded.  
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor whispered. “I’m so sorry. It means… I’m losing the battle. Being drawn too close. My own future is trying to happen here and now.”   
“And that’s not good?” Barbara asked.  
“No Ace,” the Doctor brooded in a toffee-rich Scots accent, that rolled the words around. “It is not good. Not good at all.”  
“And…” Ian cleared his throat. “We can’t ride the whirlpool?”  
The Doctor looked up. His eyes darkened. “Ride the whirlpool?”  
“Use it to accelerate, to pick up speed, and break free,” Ian suggested.  
Barbara nodded. “Like a stone from a sling?”  
The Doctor rose on his toes and boomed, throwing his hands out wide. “A stone from a sling? This isn’t a dingy in a pond about to hit the rapids, this is a highly complex time machine! We are traversing the whole of time and space, not… joy riding a pedlo!”  
Ian’s shoulders sagged. “So, it won’t work?”  
“Of course, it will work!” The Doctor beamed, his voice veering into Yorkshire, and turning distinctly feminine. “That is a top rate plan. Bonkers and dangerous, but brilliant! Nice one Fam!”  
The floor shook, and tilted. Ian grabbed the door, and clung to Barbara, as the sofa, food machine, and hat stand tumbled past, and crashed against the outer doors.  
“Ah! My bad!” The Doctor shouted, as though they were enjoying themselves a little too much. “I should have warned ya the first step is a bit of an iffy one. Hold tight, and…” He stiffened, his manner becoming starched, his movements elegant. “I just need to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.” He pulled a lever. “Now, hold on tight, I have to take us close enough to that ship to…”  
Whatever he was about to say, his words were lost in the groan of the engines.  
On the screen the battleship rushed forwards, growing ever bigger, until the sound of a long scraping impact echoed through the TARDIS.  
“Sorry old girl!” The Doctor said, with a breathless enthusiasm, and a pleasant, open, smile. “Braveheart old girl!”  
The cry of the engines subsided, and the rotor wheezed and groaned back to its usual heartbeat. The floor righted, and a sense of calm fell over the TARDIS.  
On the screen the other ship was moving away.  
“There!” The Doctor said. “I gave it a little nudge, and set time back on course. Luckily for us, it seems fate chose to let it travel on, rather than blow up.” He smiled at the Teachers. “Thank you.”  
“And you?” Barbara asked.  
“Ah! Yes.” The Doctor hunched a little, drumming his fingers nervously on the console. “Well, as the effects of the engines withdraw, I should…stop feeling the effects.”  
“And be your old self?” Ian asked.  
“My old self?” The Doctor enquired, with his usual sharp tone and twinkling eyes. “And whom else might I be Chessington? Eh my boy?” He held up his hands in a familiar gesture. “I shall be fine, my friends, just fine. My body is attuned to time, and will… recover more than adequately. Now, shall we see what our next adventure holds for us, my dear Miss Wright? Hmm?”  
Barbara smiled so brightly that Ian couldn’t help but match it.  
“Doctor,” Barbara said, hugging the older man. “It’s good to have you back!”


End file.
